Linda Howard - Death Angel

Besides, there was always the possibility that she truly didn’t remember who she was, in which case she wouldn’t remember him, either. Just because she was talking didn’t mean she was mentally unscathed. He had to get a grip, and find out exactly how she was instead of letting his imagination run away with him.

Shit. Imagination. When the fuck had he started having an imagination? He dealt in facts, in hard reality, in what was. Reality was solid. He could depend on reality, depend on it being a cold, hard bitch. That was okay with him, because he was a cold, hard bastard. They were a good pair.

He took several deep breaths and shook off whatever the hell it was that had him so on edge. All he had to do was find Drea, and discover for himself exactly what her condition was; then he could get back to New York. There were things he needed to do; he’d been in the same location long enough, and it was time he moved on. He’d check on Drea, and if she was all right he’d walk away for good.

SURGICAL POST-OP WAS ONE FLOOR DOWN, SO SIMON TOOK the stairs instead of dealing with the elevator. He preferred the stairs anyway; they gave him two directions of escape, while an elevator not only trapped him in a small box, it followed its electronic commands in the order in which it received them. If it was going “down” and had already received a call from a lower floor, he couldn’t punch the button for a higher floor and make the elevator go “up” instead.

The hospital’s general shape was a giant T, but it was lying down instead of standing up. He came out at the end of the long hallway and systematically walked the floor. Each room had a small plaque outside the door with the patient’s last name as well as the doctor’s name, which was damn convenient for his purposes.

The nurses’ station was situated at the intersection of the T, but the nurses couldn’t see down the hallways unless they stepped out from behind the divider. At the moment, with the shift change just ending and the morning meals being delivered, the hallways were a beehive of activity and he blended into the general hubbub. He kept an easy pace, looking into all the rooms with open doors but taking care to move only his eyes and keep his head steady, so to the casual observer he wouldn’t be paying any attention to the patients.

At least half the doors were closed, but with one reconnaissance he was able to eliminate all of those patients whose doors were open, because none of them were Drea. As he walked he noted the rooms that had Dr. Meecham listed as the doctor, marking their location in the three-dimensional map of his surroundings that he carried at all times in his head.

Then he saw the name “Doe,” and he almost stumbled.

Room 614. Meecham was the doctor listed.

The door was closed, but he knew he’d found her. She was there, just on the other side of that door. He knew it was Drea. There were people with the actual last name of “Doe,” but what were the odds one of them would be on this floor, at this time, with Meecham as the doctor?

His hand closed around the door handle almost before he realized he was reaching for it.

Slowly, carefully, he forced himself to release the handle. If he walked in there she’d scream the place down-assuming she recognized him. He still didn’t know her mental state.

The name “Doe” didn’t tell him anything. If she’d come through without brain damage, she would take full advantage of the circumstances and not tell them her real name. If she did have brain damage, which was likely, then she might not know her name.

Belatedly he noticed the sign on the door: No Visitors.

There were two layers of meaning to the sign. The first was obvious: no visitors. The second was “why not?” Who had put it there? The hospital, because curiosity-seekers and/or the press had been annoying/agitating/gawking at the patient, or had the patient herself requested the sign be posted? Drea certainly wouldn’t want any press, and she would want to keep any cops at bay, too, until she had cooked up a suitable story and felt able to handle them.

But he now had the name she was registered under, and he knew her room number. He’d be able to find out everything he wanted to know. He didn’t have to actually see her, didn’t have to talk to her; he could safely ignore the weird compulsion he felt to do exactly that.

Looking down the hall, he saw that the big cart laden with food trays was just three rooms down. The door to the room next to Drea’s was closed, too, so he moved farther down and leaned against the wall right outside the door, as if a nurse or tech had gone into the room to perform some duty and asked him to wait outside. He kept his gaze on the floor.

The cafeteria lady worked quickly, delivering the food trays to the proper rooms. She pushed the cart toward him, stopping it just past the door to Drea’s room. He glanced up, ready to give a quick, polite smile if she looked at him, but she ignored him as if he were so much furniture. People who worked in hospitals saw a lot of people leaning against walls.

She pulled out a tray, which looked as if it held only orange gelatin, fruit juice, coffee, and milk, but any food at all meant Drea was capable of feeding herself, rather than being fed by a tube. The cafeteria worker knocked quickly on the door, then opened it without waiting for an answer.

“Is that real food?” he heard Drea ask, her tone grumpy.

The cafeteria lady laughed. “You’ve graduated to Jell-O. If your stomach handles that without any upset, maybe tomorrow you can have mashed potatoes. We just bring what your doctor says you can have.”

After a brief silence, Drea said, “Orange! I like orange Jell-O.”

“Would you like to have two?”

“Can you do that?”

“Sure. Any time you want more, just let us know.”

“In that case, yes, I definitely want another Jell-O. I’m starving.”

While Drea was talking to the cafeteria lady and concentrating on her food, Simon straightened away from the wall and walked quickly past her door, not turning his head to look at her.

For a moment he was walking blindly, and did not see the young woman who stepped out of a room until he bumped into her. “Sorry,” he said automatically, without looking at her, and plowed ahead.

The next thing he knew, he was crushed into the back corner of a crowded elevator and had no memory of getting on it. He, who always knew not only exactly what he was doing but what everyone around him was doing, who even studied a public restroom from a strategic standpoint before entering it, had let himself get so wrapped up in his thoughts he hadn’t paid any attention to what he was doing or where he was going.

He exited on the ground floor, but the elevator he’d taken wasn’t in the same bank as the one he’d used going up. Instead of coming out close to the emergency room entrance, he was in the main lobby, which boasted a soaring, two-story atrium in which live ficus trees grew.

Numb, his brain sluggish, he walked to the exit until he remembered his rental car was in the parking lot outside the emergency room. He stopped, looked around, but didn’t see any signs pointing the way to the ER.

His usually infallible sense of direction told him to take the left corridor, so he did. He wanted to laugh, and he never laughed. Relief fizzled in his blood like champagne, making him giddy. His heart pounded in his chest, the cage of his ribs feeling too tight, as if it were closing in around his heart and lungs, restricting them.

A discreet sign caught his eye and he paused. On an unexplainable impulse he opened the door and stepped in.

As soon as he closed the door behind him he felt the silence, as if the room was soundproof. The unceasing noise and motion of a hospital halted at that doorway, as if he had entered another realm. He stood there a moment, wanting to go but feeling compelled to stay. He wasn’t a coward. No matter how ugly reality was, and it was often a real bastard, he’d always dealt with it and in it. Mercy wasn’t one of his qualities, with himself or with others. Some people misled themselves about their true nature, but Simon never had. He was what he was because no life, his own or anyone else’s, had ever meant anything special to him.